The distribution of well-prepared and experienced teacher has been a policy concerns for decades. Research has established that schools serving concentrations of historically underserved students struggle disproportionately to attract and retain teachers, resulting in the most vulnerable students being taught by the least qualified teachers--teachers with minimal professional preparation or experience (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2005; Lankford, Loeb & Wycoff, 2002). These schools have also been found to struggle the most with high degrees of teacher turnover (Borman & Dowling, 2008; Shen, 1997). However, research has also documented that while many schools serving high-need student populations struggle mightily with teacher turnover, some do not, and turnover differences between schools with similar student demographics are more significant than between schools with different student demographics (DeAngelis & Presley, 2011; Ingersoll,1995; Johnson, Kraft & Papay, 2011). Furthermore, a compelling link between teacher turnover and student achievement (Ronfeldt, Loeb & Wyckoff, 2013) has incited policy interest on how to recruit and retain more well-prepared and experienced teachers to the schools that need them the most.

This dissertation examines teacher recruitment and retention at one high-need urban school that demonstrates all of the markers of high teacher turnover but, in fact, does not struggle to attract and retain experienced teachers. The study utilizes a single-case case-study design and ethnographic methods to investigate what attracts teachers to the school, how teachers are recruited and hired, and what organizational conditions contribute to their decisions to remain teaching at the school (i.e., retention). The study was conducted over the course of an academic year and data sources include thirty-two semi-structured interviews with teachers and administrators, field notes of observations, and school-related documents. Findings revealed that a hiring orientation to finding teachers that "fit" at the school played a significant role in teachers experiencing job satisfaction and demonstrating high organizational commitment, two variables that are associated with retention. Findings also found that the school's culture and organizational identity were fundamental in attracting teachers to the school who shared the school's orientation to urban teaching, contributing to the phenomenon of "fit." This dissertation makes a contribution to two bodies of literature. First, it contributes to studies on urban teacher hiring by documenting the mechanisms that bring experienced teachers to a high-need school. It also adds to organizational analyses of schools as workplaces by investigating the conditions that support and retain teachers.

One of the prevailing concerns in education is student access to well-qualified teachers. This concern is particularly acute in the case of California math students where one of out of every six teaching in high minority middle and high schools is considered under-prepared, compared to one of twenty in high-achieving schools. Math, as a content area in schools, is often considered a gatekeeper subject. Limited access to qualified teachers only adds to America's already inequitable social stratification. As a potential barrier to higher education and employment, school math -- and those who teach it -- play critical roles in the future of students' lives.

Empirically, we know very little about why people select math teaching as a career or the role of recruitment and preparation programs in their early development and career plans. Longitudinal research is needed to examine the relationship between recruitment and preparation and who and how one becomes as a math teacher. This dissertation uses the concept of "teacher identity"—conceptualized here as both the process through which one develops as teacher and the product, both how and what or who — theoretically and analytically to help reveal this process. Specifically, in this study I examined three teacher candidates' developing teacher identities as they participated in a year-long teacher education program and the subsequent first five years of their teaching career.

The recruitment and teacher credentialing processes are of particular importance in this study; the credential program partnered with the candidates' undergraduate math major and pre-professional program which had as its aim to increase the number and retention of qualified math and science teachers. Expanding entry and retention were critical parts of the social worlds and discourses through which these candidates entered teaching.

Data collection focused primarily on interviews over six years (from preservice education to the candidates' fifth year in the classroom) and also includes survey, participant observation, and document analyses. This study draws on sociocultural perspectives to attend to the socially constructed and culturally figured aspects of identity though language and interactions in educational contexts.

This research contributes to a theoretical understanding of teacher identity as dynamic, shifting, and developed in relation to self, others, and context. It attends to the gap of empirical literature on math teacher identity specifically, with attention to conceptions of subject mastery as an exclusive property. Relationships between the beginning math teachers' biographies and perceptions of themselves as students were critical as they grappled with their fit with math teaching in general and the schools where they taught more specifically, as well on their perspectives on the students they taught and what comprised a 'good' math student.

A few discursive and contextual factors appeared to be central to their teacher identity development: the logic of recruitment for a high-need subject area, the role of field experience in preservice and teacher preparation, as well as the contexts of schools as workplaces with specific cultures and perspectives on what constitutes good students and teachers. These drew attention to the situated process of developing a teacher identity and, consequently, one's career trajectory.

This dissertation addresses this and theorizes a relationship between now and then, as articulated by the candidates. This is presented along with longitudinal data to compare their early anticipations with lived through outcomes. This study confirmed previous findings on the importance of person-organizational fit in the teachers' choice of whether to teach or stay at a particular school. However, commitment to teaching and teaching at particular sites did not necessarily equate to particular modes of instruction (e.g. teaching for equity as is attended to in this work).

Practice recommendations focus attention to field-based teacher education programs as one remedy to the current disjuncture between the historically and empirically ineffective theory-practice divide. I advocate for more attention to hybrid teacher preparation programs that reposition fieldwork and field-based knowledge and perspectives such that practice and theory are iterative and integrated across the sites of teacher preparation rather than divided and contested. This is both a practical and cultural shift.

In tandem with current research on mentorship, I recommend rigorous attention both pragmatically and empirically to the role that cooperating teachers and teacher supervisors play in teacher development and careful analysis of the kinds of support provided to them, implementation of mentoring strategies, as well as a better understanding of how they are selected by universities as well as school districts.

Following the murder of George Floyd and the wide-spread recognition of systemic discriminatory abuse of power by police, organizations across the country were jolted into reviewing their own policies and practices for evidence of prejudice and racial injustice. Teacher education programs were no exception. As teacher education grapples with this critical historical conjuncture, it is imperative to deeply examine how logics of systemic racism are embedded in the social and political structures charged with preparing future teachers. This dissertation contributes to this investigation by exploring how teacher education state and program policies intersect with teacher educator pedagogies regarding the development of antiracist engagement in pre-service teacher practice. Framed by critical whiteness studies rooted in Black scholarly perspectives and Victor Ray’s conception of racialized organizations, the purpose of this research is to bring awareness to how education policy and pedagogical strategies in teacher education support or challenge the development of racial consciousness and engagement in antiracist education. This study draws on teacher education state standards and assessments, teacher educator focus groups and pre-service teacher interview data from three teacher education institutions in central California, all with a stated commitment to preparing teachers as change agents and social justice advocates. Teacher educator focus groups were composed of program administrators, social foundations and methods instructors and examined the structural and pedagogical ways in which their programs met their social justice and equity-centered missions. In addition, eleven pre-service teachers were interviewed three times each throughout the course of their teacher education program. Each of the three interviews included questions that directly inquired about the pre-service teachers’ experiences regarding race, racism, and equity within their teacher education program and student teaching placements. My findings indicate that state policies largely sidestepped addressing issues of race, racism, and whiteness directly. Despite this omission, teacher educators in these three programs sought to provide teacher preparation that centered justice and equity-oriented education. Often they were successful, but sometimes the disconnect between the state policies and the teacher education programs created confusion and internal conflict for the student teachers. This disconnect revealed several potential barriers to developing teachers committed to antiracism, notably (1) the reliance on whiteness as a norm in the teacher education state standards, (2) the dominance of the edTPA, an assessment that does not attend to race and racism, among teachers educators and pre-service teachers (3) isolating silos of teacher educators in teacher preparation programs, and (4) the dearth of antiracist teaching methods that interrogate whiteness provided to pre-service teachers. Ultimately, I argue that we can no longer afford to only focus on transforming individual teachers one at a time, but must also attend to the larger structures that uphold values embedded in white supremacy and inequality so that as many educators as possible can be prepared to be racially literate and justice-oriented. The findings from this study uncover the sites in need of transformation and provide important implications for teacher education and education policy preparing teachers to be justice and equity oriented change agents.

This dissertation begins to address the academic void at the intersection of education, women, and orphans in India. As educational access in countries like India increases, marginalized students, including women, are entering the classroom in greater numbers. This dissertation contributes to the body of literature which describes the experiences of marginalized students in educational settings, but is unique in its focus on orphan girls. Despite an estimated 20,000,000 Indian orphans, very little is written about the population, much less the subjective ways in which education impacts their lived realities. The qualitative approach of this dissertation provides a window into the experiences of the girls as they encounter educational spaces and discourses. Through ethnographic techniques, including observation, examination of curricular materials, and semi-structured interviews, the 6 month field study focused on the interplay of social factors the influenced conceptions of the “educated Indian woman” within the particular community of Sri Ram Ashram, an orphanage and school located in rural North India. It investigated how educational norms are negotiated within a transnational community where educators from (literally) opposite sides of the world contribute to the socialization of abandoned children.

The dissertation found that education at the ashram is impacted by local, national and transnational discourses that contribute to a hybrid educational environment. Forces within and beyond the context of the local community influence the value laden decisions concerning the nature of education and consequently the cultural production of the “educated Indian woman”.

Ashram girls draw from and negotiate these various, and often contradictory, educational ideals in order to (re)construct their notions of an educated self. Specifically, they navigate conceptions of gender embedded within disparate educational discourses at the ashram. Girls encounter three discourses: 1) Education as Irrelevant; schooling for girls is unnecessary to traditional gender roles. 2) Education for Enhancement; formal schooling prepares women for marriage and motherhood thereby enhancing existing gender roles. 3) Education for Expansion; formal education offers an expansion of woman’s roles and life options.

In addition, aspects of the sociological sphere, such as social and cultural capital, deeply impact the educational experiences and life trajectories of the orphan girls. In a highly stratified society such as India, the girls require access to social capital and alternative forms of socialization in addition to formal schooling in order to transition from traditional to non-traditional gender roles. This process is underpinned by an strong ethic of care within the ashram community which foregrounds caring relationships and a focus on bolstering the status of girls in particular. These often unscrutinized and intangible aspects of girl’s lived realities are central to understanding how education, broadly defined, plays a role in the successful integration of ashram girls into Indian society.